Those Hollow Lies

Cold Reality

6/30/09 - around sunrise, I believe.

The second I had reached the infirmary, Roz was taken from me by the team of doctors I had been lucky enough to never have met. I was pushed from the room, modern glass doors sealing me off from the girl who I…no, I couldn’t let my emotions get the best of me now. I ran my hands over my face, forgetting about the damp blood still lingering on my skin, or the angry crimson stain that covered my crisp shirt. I watched through the glass as the team of doctors rushed around her, ripping the fabric from her torso and discarding it in a bin without a second thought. I could still see her blood, seeping onto the bed she lay motionless upon as tubes and machines were hooked up to her, the doctors prepping the small girl for surgery. I couldn’t bear to watch, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from her either. I was scared that if I looked away, I’d lose her and if I lost her…I had already done that once and I wasn’t going to let it happen again, not this time.

Agents came by, asked questions, peered through the glass, but not of them stayed. I knew there was paperwork, lots of paperwork that I had to fill out after this, but I wasn’t leaving her alone, not until I knew that she was going to be alright and not until it was her hoarse voice that croaked it at me. I was her partner, her friend and something more, and I was not about to let her die in a room, alone.

I had so much to think about. I had vowed never to kill another human being. I had told Roz that I would never pull the trigger of the gun I constantly felt weighing me down on missions. I had promised myself to never become a killer and yet, in less than five seconds, I had made the decision, pulled the trigger and stolen a life without even thinking about it. I kept replaying the scene over in my head. I saw him pull out the gun, aim at Roz and then something inside of me had snapped, freed the killer locked inside. I didn’t even remember how I did it. I didn’t remember aiming for his head, but the hole was there, the blank lifeless eyes…it was all there, it had all happened and Roz had been shot, dangerously close to her heart.

There was a loud noise that penetrated even the thickest glass surrounding the room and I snapped back to the present moment. The doctors were rushing around her body, the machines screaming sounds that were only ever associated with death or hospital dramas. I saw the defibrillator, heard the muffled ‘clear’ and watched as her body jerked on the blue sheets.

No. No. No. Roz was not going to die! Rosaline Kate Harman was not the kind of girl who would bow out like this! It wasn’t going to happen! I slowly moved back from the glass, tears blurring my vision as they moved in to try again, increasing the voltage and bracing themselves for a possible third attempt.

“Come on Rozzie, come on, hang in there.” I whispered, pleading with her to be as strong as I knew she was, before all of this happened.

There was a pause, and then everything seemed to freeze. No one moved, nothing made a noise and I stopped breathing, blinking…the only thing that seemed to fall was a tear down my cheek that I wanted to wipe away but found myself unable to do so.

‘Beep’, ‘beep’, ‘beep’.

Then, life resumed, I let out the breath I was holding, wiped away the tear and smiled in relief. Roz was back and the doctors moved to continue examining her internal organs, extract the bullet and stitch her back together again. I fell back into a chair and put my head in my hands. I had thought for a moment that she was gone, that I had lost her and that moment was the darkest of my life.

This wasn’t like last time. There wasn’t Joe to pull me back or a few days to expect her to walk through the door again only to then see her at her own funeral. I knew that this time, if the lights had gone out, there was no coming back for her.

She was right. This time she could make no promises and this time there was no guarantee that she would make it out alive. There was a reason she had done everything to me that I had fought against and now I realised that it really was the only way I  could stay alive. Times were growing darker and if Roz could get so emotionally involved like this; something she had vowed never to do, then it only highlighted the severity of the situation.

If we failed, we would be killed, so would countless others, including Joe. This wasn’t like the last time, when we could afford to be overly confident and know each and every step we would be taking. Now, we had to become the shadows of the city, operate without anyone ever knowing who we were and working without any attachments to anything outside of the Quarter. This could very well be the end for us all, if we were to fail this mission.

The doctors stepped back from the bed, nodding and writing on charts. Roz was alive, for now and I could relax for a little while.

When I had first come here, forced into the Quarter without choice, it had been her who had protected me, but now, now I needed to protect her.

Even if it killed me.